Summer is filled with miles on the roads and hours in the grocery store aisles for three Sioux Falls Lincoln boys.

Every once in a while, Dale Loudon stinks at work. Not in the sense that he’s not good at his job, but in the sense that he smells bad.

Loudon, who is a rising junior at Sioux Falls Lincoln (South Dakota) High School, works about 25 hours per week at the Hy-Vee grocery store in Sioux Falls on South Minnesota Ave. It’s one of seven Hy-Vee stores in town. Loudon is also running about 40–50 miles per week in preparation for cross country season.

That’s why he sometimes stinks. If he goes for a run with his teammates before his 9 a.m. shift, he might not get the chance to shower. “I try to keep my distance [from my coworkers] on those days,” laughs Loudon, who corrals shopping carts on the rare day when he doesn’t have time to clean up before work.

Fitting in runs around a summer job can be a difficult task. Seasonal jobs are often draining, taking energy that runners would rather put toward training. And there’s usually little time left over for hanging out with friends. But they’re a fact of life for teen runners.

Many of the boys at Sioux Falls Lincoln work at the Hy-Vee stores around town. Dreux Selzler, class of 2015, also works 20–30 hours on 6–8 hour shifts and runs 40–50 miles per week. The same goes for Selzler’s classmate, Nathan Schroeder, who took second in the 1600m run at the South Dakota State meet in 4:26.56.

Their work schedule revolves around their training logs. “My biggest goal,” Loudon says, “is to not let work get in the way of running.” The team meets on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays each week at 7:30 a.m. Their run could be anything from hills to a small interval workout—their coach Eric Pooley has it all mapped out—and then it’s off to work.

“Sometimes I work 9 to 5,” Loudon says, “and it can be a long, long day.” Loudon now works in the Italian section of the store, which means he’s making pizzas all day long. (It’s better than when he worked the cash register and would see a fruit or vegetable and have no clue what the code was for it.) And because of the Sioux Falls Lincoln boys’ success—they were the 2013 South Dakota cross country state champs—they’re sometimes recognized in the store, thanks to newspaper clippings.

Even with the tough hours and long miles, the Sioux Falls Lincoln boys know that the summer is a time where they can improve dramatically.

Coach Pooley instills a mantra in them: “The offseason is a time to get better.” With that in mind, Loudon says, “I’m gonna work hard over the summer and then hopefully come out with a jump in my 5K time this fall.”